Chapter Three
An annoying, piercing sound whistles its way into his wonderful world of sleep, yanking him back to reality. Kol opens an eye, pushing up on the bed to see where the blasted sound is coming from, and spots his cellphone on the nightstand, vibrating its way to the edge. He picks it up to see his brother's name on the screen, and he wants to throw it across the room. But, he
knows that Niklaus is a persistent fucker and will keep calling him until he answers, so he taps the green button to accept the call and get it over with.
"What the fuck do you want?" he snaps when he puts the ear to his phone.
"Is that any way to greet your older brother?" Nik says mockingly, and Kol wants to reach through the phone and punch whatever look he is wearing off his face. "You didn't answer my call last night either."
Kol groans, rolling over in the bed, wincing at the soft light filtering in through the window. "I've been a bit busy," he mumbles into the speaker.
"Doing what?"
Kol pulls the covers over his head to block out the annoying light. "Driving all over bloody creation," he says tiredly.
"How is Denver? It's been a while since I have seen the city, but I hear it's lovely this time of year," Nik states, sounding completely alert and ready for whatever day he has planned for himself.
"I don't bloody know," Kol sighs, rubbing his eyes, itching for more sleep. "Haven't made it there yet."
"What is taking you so long to get there?"
"I don't know," Kol snaps, getting tired of the questions. "Maybe because it's halfway across the bloody country, and I'm not getting on one of those flying things the humans have created. So, I stopped for the night to get a bite to eat."
Nik lets out a bored sigh. "I need to know what is going on with Gilbert boy," he reminds him, and Kol hears the sound of liquid pouring into a glass.
Kol pulls the phone away to check the time and slaps it right back when he reads the numbers. "You woke me up at 6 in the morning for a bloody lecture?" he barks at his brother.
"Well, if my youngest brother had better time management, I wouldn't be giving him a lecture," Nik quips, making Kol's urge to punch his brother grow. "Since you're already up, you best get a move on."
Kol rolls his eyes. "You're right," he sighs as if he agreed with Nik, pulling the phone from his ear to hit the end button and tossing it onto the table. He pushes back the covers and yanks the extra pillow over his head, hoping this will be enough to keep his blasted ringtone from waking him up again as he falls back to sleep to pick up where he left off.
After catching up on much needed sleep, which was phone call free, by the way, and a nice hot shower, Kol is walking along a street in the French Quarter. He loves everything he sees and hears. People are bouncing around through the street in great abundance, and jazz is playing on every corner. The sticky humid air makes it feel like Kol is in July and not September. There is a little vendor selling fresh produce outside a shop. Grinning, he snatches up a juicy green apple and slips the lady a few bucks for his choice of fruit. He takes a nice chunk out of the apple, loving the sweet and tart juice that is flooding his mouth.
Something catches his eye, making him look to the left, and he sees Marcel standing and talking to some guy. Seeing Marcel dealing with some business, Kol turns around to go down another street and makes a quick stop when he spots a coffee shop. The quick stop ends up being a bit longer than Kol anticipated, but he leaves with two cups in his hands.
Kol scans the area as he walks along the iron fence, pausing in front of the gate. He uses his hearing to listen for anything he doesn't want to hear before pushing through the entryway. He is almost to the door when a dark-skinned man with dark curly hair stops him, standing in front of him with his arms crossed.
The man glares at him, trying to be intimidating, and since Kol is the king at intimidation, he isn't impressed. "The church is closed to the public," he tells him.
Kol raises an eyebrow at that. "This church is never closed to the public," he says.
"Well, it is today, so you will need to come back another day," the man says, narrowing his eyes, and veins crawl like snakes up his face, and it's clear the vampire thinks this is a scare tactic that will send him running for the hills.
Kol almost feels sorry for making plans that will cause his hope to take a nosedive into hell, but it sounds fun, and the reward will be so worth the trouble. "That's a nice trick you have there, mate," Kol says, bending down to place the two cups he is holding on the sidewalk so he can deal with the idiot in front of him.
Kol chuckles as he stands up. "I can do that too," he says, borrowing the man's scare tactic, and he feels his itchy veins inching up his face.
The vampire opens his mouth to speak, but before he can utter a word, Kol flashes forward, using a quick twist of his hands to create that incredible cracking sound that comes with snapping a neck. Kol ignores the falling body as he walks back for the cups and walks up the steps to enter the church for the first time in a century.
Kol looks around the church, and everything is the same as if time never continued ticking forward. The lighting is poor, making the sanctuary very dark. The air has the old coppery scent of blood but is clammy and chilly at the same time. Kol notices old blood spatter on the walls but still looks too new for the stains from his killing spree. Pieces of old broken glass, wood fragments, and rubbish trail through the rows of pews littering the floor, making the place look like a dumping ground.
Angry footsteps on wood have Kol looking for the sound and notices a shadow on the floor in front of the stairs. "I said leave me, Diego!" Davina shouts as she turns the corner, freezing when she sees him. "Oh…" she mutters as the murderous look on her face has him grinning at her.
"Greetings, Little Witch."
Davina's cheeks redden slightly. "I'm sorry, I thought you were someone else," she sighs, glaring at the doors.
"It appears as if someone has made you angry, Love," he says, making his way over to her. "Care to tell me about it?"
Davina shakes her head. "It's nothing I can't handle," she sighs, bringing her blue eyes back to him.
"And there is nothing that can convince me otherwise," he smiles at her, remembering the heavy force of her power when she was raining pain down on his head. He wonders what else she is capable of doing. "How are you feeling?"
Davina raises her hands to the sides of her face. "I have the worst headache," she mutters, rubbing her temples. "And I'm freezing."
"I figured as much, so I brought you this," Kol says, holding up one of the cups as she drags her hands away from her face and blinks in surprise at his offering. "The best thing for curing such things."
"You brought me coffee?" she asks softly, and surprise isn't just in her expression but also her tone.
"Not coffee, but a nice herbal tea," he says, and her eyes turn wary as she looks at the cup, looking as if she is hesitant to take it from him. "Did I do something wrong?" he frowns.
"Teas have the potential of being poisonous," Davina says slowly.
"You think I would poison you?"
"I don't know you," Davina states, and it's true. They don't know each other at all, and he gives her points for being cautious.
"You're right. You don't know me," Kol tells her, "but this is just some peppermint tea, and it will help with that nasty headache you're experiencing, Love."
"You never know in this town," Davina says, taking the cup from him and lifting it to her nose. "Smells good, though."
"If it makes you feel any better, I watched them make it myself," Kol says as she watches him, "Nothing went in that cup except two tea bags and some lemon and honey."
Davina nods and brings the cup to her full lips. "If I croak, I'm haunting you for the rest of your life," she warns.
"Please do, that will keep things interesting," Kol chuckles, causing her to smile shyly at him, and he finds himself wanting to make her smile more.
"Noted," she says, taking the first sip of her tea. "What are you drinking?" she asks, nodding at his cup.
"Coffee," he says, and she narrows her blue eyes at him as he takes a long sip from his cup.
Davina shakes her head at him. "That is so not fair," she mutters, gently blowing into the hole in the lid.
"Do you like coffee?"
"I can drink it all day. Why?"
"Just curious," he states, glancing around the church as more memories surfaced. He can hear the screams from the last night he had been inside these walls. He hears them as if he were still in that moment.
"You do know that curiosity is what killed the cat, right?" Davina asks.
Kol turns to her, smirking. "According to Ben Johnson, a nice bloke, by the way, the saying goes as such, Care killed the cat," he says.
Davina rolls her eyes. "Let me guess, you met the man?" she asks, leaning on the door frame and taking another sip of her tea.
"Yes, I have," Kol nods. "Literature has always been a soft spot for me. Shakespeare is the one who changed the phrase from Care to curiosity."
"Did you meet him too?"
"As I said, literature has always been a soft spot for me," he repeats.
"So, is that a yes, or no?"
"What do you think the answer is, Darling?" he questions, walking up the steps to the alter. He runs his fingers over the surface, finding it caked over in dust.
"I'm going to with no," she answers.
"Why did you go with that answer?"
Davina sits down in a pew, curling her legs under her as she takes another sip of tea. "Because, when I asked you about Ben Johnson, you answered honestly," she explains.
"What makes you think I was honest about my answer?" Kol asks, walking over to take a seat next to her. "I could have lied about my answer as I am an excellent liar."
"Maybe to someone who isn't a witch," Davina says, twisting the cup in her hand. "I can sense when people are lying, and besides, you answered my question about Shakespeare differently than the one about Ben Johnson."
"That is a very thoughtful answer," Kol says, surprised by the girl's insight. She's young, but her insight makes her seem older than she looks. "I hope that guy wasn't a friend of yours."
Davina tilts her head. "Who?"
Kol gestures to the double doors behind them. "The vampire standing guard out front," he answers.
Davina tracks his fingers to the back of the church and jerks her head back. "Diego?" she asks and throws her head back, holding on to her stomach as she laughs heartily. "God, no," she giggles.
"Is that the same Diego who was the source of your anger earlier?"
"That will be the one," she says, breathing heavily as she straightens up in the pew. "Thanks for the laugh, I needed one," she confesses, as the shadows in her eyes fade slightly, making them a brighter blue than before and enough to tell Kol that she is telling the truth.
"You don't like him?"
Davina shakes her head. "I can't stand that fucker," she says viciously, with fire in her eyes making them shift from a bright blue to a deeper, smokier blue, and Kol knew at that moment that he became a fan of the girl in front of him.
"Well, that's good," Kol says, feeling slightly relieved, but he doesn't know why he feels that way, and it's strange. "Now, I don't feel bad about what I did to him," he boasts.
Davina's eyes widen. "You didn't kill him, did you?" she asks him, sounding slightly worried. "Please tell me you didn't kill him," she pleads.
"I thought you didn't like him," Kol says teasingly, but Davina glares at him as she gets up and starts pacing in front of him.
"I don't," she says, twisting around to walk one way before looping around to walk back. "This is bad. This is very bad," she whispers, pushing her fingers in her hair, and pulling strands from her messy ponytail. The stressful look on her face has his gut twisting inside him, knowing that he is the cause of that look and knowing that he needs to tell her the truth.
"Davina," he calls, and she pauses her pacing to look at him. Her rapidly shifting eyes tell him thoughts are racing through her mind. "All I did was break his neck."
Davina stares at him silently, blinking as she registers his words. "And I missed it?" she screeches at him. It's so not what he had expected her to say, and he is rolling laughing as her stressful, concerned look shifts into being deeply annoyed. The girl is a bright joy, and Kol is not sure how he feels about this or even describe it. There is something new and foreign shifting inside of him, and it makes him want to run far away until the feeling is gone. Yet, he doesn't want to leave.
"You're not mad?"
Davina shakes her head, picking her tea up as she sits down next to him. "No, I would have paid money to see that," she says, pulling another round of laughter out of him. And that feeling inside him is back. This time it burns a little.
Kol shifts in his seat, trying to ignore whatever is happening inside him. "I can bring him in here and do it again," he offers.
"As fun as that sounds, I'll pass," Davina says, sipping her tea. "I just got rid of the fucker right before you showed up. If I saw him again, it will only be too soon."
Kol remembers something, and it has him reaching into his pocket. "Is this yours?" he asks, pulling out a white phone and holding it up for her to see.
Davina's eyes widen at the sight of the Samsung S III. "I have been looking everywhere for that," she says, taking it from his hands. "Thank you. I didn't even know I dropped it."
And that has to be a first for him because Kol can't think of a time when someone had thanked him for anything. Even his siblings had never thanked him when they needed him for service only he could provide them.
"To be fair, you were a bit occupied," Kol reminds her as she thumbs at the screen, causing the light to illuminate her face, smiling at whatever she is reading. Kol feels that he can stare at her all day and never get tired of it. What the fuck? What is going on with this mind? It must be the air of the church, and it's messing with this head. Maybe there are spirits in the room getting revenge for killing them so violently. The thought tells him that it's time for him to leave and never return to the bloody church. He's never dealt with a haunted church before, and he isn't sure if he wants to start now. Why did he come to this church again?
"Come with me," his reminder says, jumping to her feet and hurrying to the stairs. "I have something you want," she calls as she turns the corner and disappears. Something pulls Kol out of the few and has him following her up the stairs until he is stopped by the barrier that keeps him from entering a place where he's not invited. Davina is plugging in her phone, and Kol steals the quiet moment to look around. He leans against the doorframe, frowning at what he sees.
There is not much to the room at all. There is barely any room to walk as much of the space is used up by discarded items needing a new place to call home. It's a nice space for a church attic, what he doesn't like about it is all the small personal items that tell him this is also a living space. In the middle, there is a bed covered in white bedding, neatly made. A desk housing a sketchbook, different art supplies, and a chair with clothes thrown over the back. Sunlight flows through the circular window above the bed to give the room some natural lighting. Lightsticks are littered about on flare surfaces to offer additional lighting to a chandelier hanging from the ceiling with decades worth of cobwebs.
Davina steps away from the desk, disappearing from his sight. She reappears a few seconds later, holding a piece of clothing in her hands. She walks over to stand in front of him, looking up at him, wearing an apologetic smile. "I did the best I could to get the blood out," she says, holding the article of clothing out for him to take, and he sees that it's his jacket.
"You cleaned my jacket?" he asks her, taking the jacket from her and opening it up to see that she had attacked the bloodstains with something and is honestly floored by it. He couldn't remember the last time someone did anything kind for him, and he really didn't know what to say.
Davina nods. "I'm sorry I couldn't do a better job," she says, looking down at her feet and sounding like she's disappointed in herself and he is not having that.
"Look at me," he says lightly, sounding completely foreign to himself, but he wants to reach over to lift her chin, but can't, so he waits until she brings her blue eyes up to his. "You did an amazing job, Davina."
Davina crosses her arms, blinking back tears. "Please don't lie to me," she pleas in a small whisper. "I've had enough liars in my life, and I don't need anymore."
"Look at me," he says lightly, sounding completely foreign to himself, but he wants to reach over to lift her chin but can't, so he waits until she brings her blue eyes up to his. "You did an amazing job, Davina."
Davina blinks as tears fill her eyes, crossing her arms. "Please don't lie to me," she pleas in a small whisper. "I've had enough liars in my life, and I don't need anymore."
"I'm not lying," Kol tells her firmly, and for some reason, he needs her to believe him. "You made an effort, and your effort is more than enough, Love. If it makes you feel any better, the jacket isn't even mine. It's something my brother forced on me, and this is what he gets for giving it to me."
Davina chuckles. "That actually makes me feel worse," she sniffs, rubbing at her eyes. "I could have gotten the blood out if I had the right supplies, but they don't actively keep the church stocked with the right stuff."
Kol looks around the room again. "You really live here?" he asks her.
"Unfortunately, I do," she replies.
"How come?"
Davina stares at him silently, nibbling her bottom lip as she glances around the room and does a quick check behind him before stepping back. "You can come in," she says, walking into the chair and removing the clothes.
Kol raises his eyebrows at her. "Now, why would you do such a thing?" he asks her seriously, stepping carefully into the room. And the room is smaller than it looks from the outside. Kol feels like he has stepped into a coat closet. Kol wants to stretch out both of his arms to see if he can touch either wall simultaneously. He sees a line of plates hanging on the wall by the door and an easel holding a blank canvas.
"I was getting tired of standing," Davina says, placing the clothes onto another surface, rolling her eyes when the clothes roll off and onto the floor.
"This means I can come and go as I please, Love," he warns her, and when she doesn't appear phased by his comment. "This means I can sneak in here and kill you if I wanted to."
"You won't."
Kol smirks at how simple she sounded. "How can you be so sure?' he asks, walking around her.
Davina smirks back at him. "Well, you've had two opportunities to kill me, and you've wasted both of them by talking to me," she tells him in a teasing tone. "Which means you either want something from me, or you like me."
"You get two points," Kol says, walking over to plop down on the bed and lay his head on the pillows as he stretches out. "I'll give you an extra point if you tell me what you think it is?"
Davina narrows her eyes at him. "I think me telling you my answer is way too easy," she says, meeting his smirk.
Kol chuckles. "I see how it is, Little Witch," he laughs, feeling completely content in her presence. "What to know my answer?"
Davina sits down in the chair next to the bed. "Something tells me that you are going to tell me anyway," she says, grinning at him. Kol is surprised with how sharp she is, and it's like she can see inside his mind and isn't afraid to call him out on his shit. And he fucking likes that.
But that doesn't mean he likes to lose, and he refuses to lose, so this is what he is going with. "It would be a shame if the world lost someone as beautiful as you, Love," he says, feeling proud of his choice of words as he watches her jaw drop, stunned. Her perfect full lips are in the perfect shape of an O, and he wants to reach over to see if they feel as soft as they looked. "So, no, I have no interest in killing you." And truthfully, he doesn't think he can bring himself to hurt her, even if he wanted to.
"Stop," she says, pushing a piece of hair out her face as she looks away from him, the apples of her cheeks are a rosy pink.
"That means I win," Kol says, smirking, noticing the sketchbook within arm's reach. "May I?" he asks her, pointing to the book because he's curious about what's inside it.
"Sure," Davina nods, and he takes the green light to grab it.
"So, tell me, Davina Claire, how you came to live here," Kol says, opening the book to the first page and is taken back by what he sees. He's not sure what he had expected to see, but it wasn't a mountainscape sketched out with great careful attention to the more minor details. Shadows on the mountain peaks make them look snow-capped. The different shades of mountains create distance in the picture. Different textures on the trees for him to make them out as pine trees. He really likes the detailing in the clouds. He turns the page to find the same thing, but this one has water. The reflection of the mountains in the lake matches the actual mountain almost perfectly. Not only is she beautiful, but she has an artistic ability that might actually rival Nik's. Of course, Nik has had a thousand years to perfect his ability, but Davina has only been on this earth for a short amount of time. It's impressive to see what she can do at a young age. Age? He doesn't even know her age, which brings the question to his tongue.
"How old are you?" he questions, flipping through the page and stopping to admire each one for all that talent that goes into each pencil stroke. He flips to another page and is gifted a beautiful landscape in color, a beach scene. He enjoyed the black and white sketches, but he is truly in love with the world of color created on this page and wishes he could visit wherever this is because now he really wants to see the beach in person.
"Seventeen," she answers. Seventeen. Only two years from the age that he is forever cursed to live with. Okay, so she is older than what he initially thought, which was fifteen or sixteen, but still, she is young. And young enough where she should be living at home with her parents, which pulls him out of the sketchbook and back into reality.
"I'm not hearing your story, Davina Claire," Kol says, closing the sketchbook to look at the young witch sitting in the chair, looking to be deep in thought.
"I don't know where to start," Davina admits, shifting to curl her legs under her in the chair. It makes him want to laugh because the chair is massive, and it looks like the chair cushions are eating up her small frame.
"How about Mary Alice?" he recommends lightly. "What happened to her?"
"I don't know much about her outside the journals," Davina confesses. "I never met her, but I think I remember my grandmother saying that she died of natural causes in the early 60s."
"I thought you said Mary Alice was your grandmother," Kol says, pulling the information from their brief conversation the night before.
"Mary Alice was my great grandmother," Davina reveals, playing with a string sticking up in one of the arms of the chair. "Floretta Claire was my grandmother, and Lorraina Claire was my mother," she adds as her voice grows wet, and he doesn't miss the heavy tone of grief that comes with those last two names. Kol doesn't miss the past tense of her words, and he doesn't want to ask her what she means because he already knows what the answer is going to be. This is a story that has brought her great pain. Kol can already see that in her face.
"I see," Kol says, sitting up to lean his elbows on his knees. "You don't have to tell me what happened if you don't want to, Davina," he assures her, and she smiles weakly at him.
"There was a house fire when I was four," Davina says, glancing down at her hands. "And you know…" she trails off quietly.
And he knows exactly where she is heading, and he closes his eyes as he processes what she has shared with him. He doesn't have all the details of what happened, and he doesn't need them. Not at this time and only if and when she is ready to share them with him. Kol has been given many labels throughout his long life, and many of them did not have great meaning, but his heart went out to her. To lose her family in such a way when she was that young. It's something that he is having a hard time wrapping his head around, and he isn't the one who lived through it.
"I'm sorry that you had to go through that," Kol says, wanting to reach over to take one of her hands into his, but he refrains. "Have you been living here since then?" he asks, hoping that her answer is no because her answer has to be no. The thought of her living in the attic since she was four years old makes him want to murder someone… He glowers at the floor as he thinks of ways to kill this unnamed person.
"No," Davina says, shaking her head. "I have only been living here for a couple of months after Marcel saved my life."
Well… that's nice to hear, he thinks to himself, and his brain freezes when it registers that last part. Kol stops glaring at the floor to look at Davina. "What do you mean he saved your life?" he asks immediately as her hands curl into tight fists and her face is angry. "From what?" he presses.
"My coven," Davina answers icily.
Kol blinks. "Why would Marcel need to save you from your coven?" he asks her, sinking into his thoughts. He knows through his experience with witches, that a witch's greatest ally would be their coven. Witches should be able to rely on their covens to offer protection, guidance, and fellowship. Times have changed over the centuries, so maybe the meaning of covens has changed as well.
"About three months ago," Davina begins, "my friends and I were required to attend a ceremony held by our coven leaders where the four of us were chosen to participate in a Harvest ritual," she explains.
"They told us that it would bring the French Quarter coven strength and health to our families," she says, and there is enough anxiety bouncing off her that Kol gets up to walk around the room as he listens. "They said that our sacrifice would be a great honor to our community and that we would be seen as saviors by our people.
"And what must you sacrifice for the sake of this ritual?" Kol asks, picking up an old box and lifting the lid to see it's an old music box that doesn't work. He wrinkles his nose at it before turning around to look at her, waiting for her to answer.
"I have to die."
Wait...what?